TIM NETSCHER

It’s about full empowerment and accountability, the newly appointed Western Areas director tells Nick Evans.

Best career break?

In 1991. I’d previously worked at Impala Platinum (the second-biggest platinum company, then 40 per cent owned by Gencor, which later became BHP Billiton). I left Impala at the assistant general manager level — a mine site position — to become general manager of a competitor. A few years later, it was taken over by Impala, so I found myself back there. While I was away, Brian Gilbertson had been appointed chairman and he later became the inaugural managing director of BHP Billiton. Brian showed considerable faith, appointing me as an executive director at Impala. I remember an interview with him where he said, “I had to buy a company to get hold of you. That cost a lot of money, so don’t muck it up. If you can’t do this job, I’ll find someone who can”. That summarised Brian’s leadership style in a nutshell: full accountability and full empowerment, which I enjoyed immensely.

Describe your leadership style?

I’m a firm believer in full empowerment and accountability and view myself as a team coach. Having said that, I’m also a team player and I like to have regular meetings with my team, ensuring that the problems and opportunities of the company are addressed as a group — that also adds a bit of peer pressure to achieve goals.

Most memorable executive experience?

Coming back from lunch at PT Inco’s remote site in Sulawesi in Indonesia to find a fire raging in the processing plant and destroying a quarter of our production capability, and being told by our chief fire officer he didn’t believe his team had the resources to extinguish the fire — meaning the whole processing plant, and the company, was in danger of being destroyed. We were on a remote site and had the only fire-fighting capability in the region, so we had no one else. Due to heroic efforts from the team, we extinguished the fire and returned to full production within three months. In a situation like that, you draw on the innermost resources of the team, and I was certainly blessed with a dream team at PT Inco, many of whom I still miss. And after rebuilding the end of the plant destroyed by the fire, in my last month on site the nickel price hit an all-time high and we were making a net profit after tax of about $1 million every four hours on the site. These things don’t come along very often in the mining business, but they make it all worthwhile when they do.

Are executive remuneration levels excessive?

After recent adjustments, executive remuneration levels are not excessive, particularly when one also takes into account the at-risk component of executive packages — there’s now a better alignment of executive and shareholder interests.

Best way to improve productivity?

Empower teams to deliver as business units — they need, as far as possible, to have profit and loss accountability for their individual units. They’ll know best what improvements will deliver the best bang for the buck in their units — you sitting at the top of the organisation will have no idea. You need to create the right culture.

Do you use social media?

I’ve now moved on to being a non-executive director and that requires careful management of your professional brand — your major marketable asset. It incorporates your integrity, value system, work ethic and reputation as a professional team player. I use LinkedIn a lot, but not Twitter or Facebook.

What do you do in your spare time?

I enjoy exercising outdoors, so I play club social tennis and enjoy walking. I’m a very poor golfer — I took it up very late in life — and when we are both in Perth (Gindalbie director) Robin Marshall and I play nine holes during the week at Wembley. I travel when I get the chance. I recently did a wonderful cruise to Burma and India. I don’t drink spirits but I enjoy a good red wine and am a member of a small wine appreciation group — life’s too short to drink bad wine.

Best Australian holiday destination?

I’m a warm weather person. I really enjoy the Margaret River area in summer but it is hard to beat the Sunshine Coast in Queensland as an all-year-round destination.

Best book?

My best form of relaxation is to read detective stories. I load them onto my Kindle and read a few pages every night before falling asleep. I can’t even tell you what I’m reading, it’s not really relevant but it provides good relaxation.

Given the recent wave of consolidation in WA gold, how will the sector look this time next year?

There is still scope in WA for companies to consolidate under the banner of a company able and willing to invest for the longer term, one that will bring the real ability to innovatively reduce operating costs. To me, there is a real opportunity for nimble mid-tier producers who really understand cost-drivers, long and short term, to emerge and grow if they rigidly adhere to their core competencies and not growing for the sake of growth. As companies grow they need to pause frequently to embed their core competencies into new assets, as the benefits of economies of scale fall off quite quickly.